Stocks fall as Obama fails to deliver details

By IBT Staff Reporter On 02/25/09 AT 1:08 PM

Stocks fell on Wednesday as President Barack Obama's first address to Congress shed little new light on how he plans to stabilize the economy and shore up banks, and gloomy home sales data fed the negative sentiment.

Obama said in his speech on Tuesday night the United States would emerge stronger from the ongoing crisis, but investors found little in what he said to spur buying after the market's rebound on Tuesday from 1997 lows.

He gave a very good speech in terms of making the citizens feel better about some of the things going on, but there is still a lot of work to be done, said Tim Smalls, head of U.S. stock trading at brokerage Execution LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The housing data is another dose of reality, he added.

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes plunged by a greater than expected 5.3 percent in January, an industry group reported.

Shares of financial services companies and big manufacturers led the market lower. Boeing and IBM were the top drags in the Dow, with declines of 6 percent and 2.5 percent respectively. The S&P financial index fell 4.4 percent.

Shares of Lincoln National Corp. fell more than 19 percent after the company slashed its dividend more than 95 percent. The S&P Life Insurance index dropped 9 percent.

U.S. regulators are due to begin tests on Wednesday to determine how much capital banks need. Even so, investors remain uncertain about how the government would relieve banks of money-losing assets and revive lending.